"Thank you."

"You are helping. You've helped more than I know how to tell you. And-- thank you, for that."

He reaches out to hold Mordred's hand, and they're quiet together.

It's a good kind of quiet. Mordred is more okay than he's been in... a very, very long time.

One day, on a walk, Oswald stumbles across a Tarot reader/medium with a sign in the door that says Lacie Ferrier.

He catches the name out of the corner of his eye and thinks he's imagining it. He double checks anyways.

The knowledge that this might be a hallucination is the only thing that keeps his heart from pounding out of his chest. Nothing else will fit inside his head, no plans, no goals, no ideas for what he wants to say to her; just the two realities balanced in his head, the one where his sister is behind this door and the one where the Liar is laughing at him.

He hesitates on the threshold for a while before finding his resolve and going in.

"Brother!"

"--Lacie."

"Oh, it's so lovely to see you! How are you doing?"

Her face shines.

"I am. fine."

He cannot touch almost any of the stuff of the past several months right now. There's an odd ball of guilt and unease in his stomach.

"How are -- uh -- weren't you in L.A.?"

"Oh, Captain Walker doesn't understand the beauty of Our God at all. He's only worried about money. I couldn't stand it at all."

He stifles a horrible laugh. "You really don't change, do you?"

Oh God, he misses her.

"So we... agreed to part. And now I can venerate Our God as much as I wish!"

"Oh, Oswald, it's perfect."

She looks terrifyingly thin.

"I'm happy that... you're happy?"

He wants to hold her tight and never let go and he doesn't want to go near her and he wants to never leave this room and he wants to take her home and feed her and never let her run off again and he wants to run for the hills right this instant. He wants Lev to be here telling him to make reasonable choices, except he has no idea if that's what Lev would be doing because the version is his head is much simpler than the real one and he can't think. "Please tell me you've been eating. If you left home and then immediately forgot how to take care of yourself, I swear..."

"I eat! Sometimes."

"Sometimes I fast for the glory of Our God. It lets me see visions of Him..."

"You know, incense would work just as well and then you wouldn't waste away over it." This is the stupidest argument he's ever started. It's easier than addressing the important stuff.

"Sometimes I have bad weeks with the Tarot reading and of course I have to buy Nectar..."

"Oh, of course. I guess even if they let members have it free you've gone and run back to New York."

He has a very rich patron, is the first thought he has, it wouldn't even take that much to keep her from starving, and the second thought is the stark reminder that his sister is an addict and it's never going to let her go and that's skirting dangerously close to the bottomless void in this conversation they've been dancing around.

"Don't worry, brother."

She clutches his arm.

"The God has spoken to me. I can make another Mouth here..."

He freezes when she grabs him, dead panic pooling in his veins, and then with considerable effort yanks his arm away.

"Lacie, don't. Please don't."

But no! Of course that's what she wants to do. They're on opposite sides now. The reminder hits him like a knife. Literally all he can do is listen and report back and not hand too much to the enemy, and try not to die inside about what's happening to his little sister.

"What is he telling you?"

"He is so vast. He is larger than worlds. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen..."

"I love him."

"I know."

"What are you doing up here, Lacie? You just... fast? And take Nectar, and talk to him in visions?" What is he making you do, he wants to ask, but it's going to come out hostile and he doesn't want to argue about whether he's making her do anything.

"Through my readings I'm finding other people who are like me. Who love Him.

And we're all going to love Him together."

"You're converting...? Of course you are. You were... you were always good at making friends."

"It's not me, it's Him."